“Now...would be a good time to visit Silent Hill,” said Twilight.
Her friends, sitting around the table in the exclusive meeting room in the back of the pub, all nodded.
“Sounds great! Do they have oil there?” asked Columbia.
Since suddenly appearing after Trixie and Cordoba nuked the moon, Columbia had baffled them all, Trixie and Cordoba included. Columbia was a leggy red, white, and blue alicorn with a surplus of sex organs.
She sat upright in her chair with a mug of beer on the table in front of her and her hind legs splayed. They all actively avoided looking at her junk. It was difficult.
“Actually,” said Twilight, “don’t you think you’d rather start locally with a, um, grassroots campaign? Nopony lives in Silent Hill.”
Columbia shrugged. “I didn’t get where I am by thinking.”
“Well, technically you haven’t been anywhere,” Twilight pointed out. “Since you were only created a few days ago.”
“Excuse you, but I was birthed of nuclear hellfire and bacon.” Columbia crossed her forelegs. They all wished she’d cross the other pair.
“I’m interested in exactly what went into your creation,” said Twilight. “But not so much that I actually want to be near you or touch anything that Valiant had to do with.”
“Whatever.” Columbia polished a hoof on her chest.
At least she seemed unperturbed by insults. She was either too stupid to notice, or simply was the proverbial rubber that slurs bounced off. Twilight didn’t care which, as long as Columbia left everyone alone.
That seemed less and less likely the longer they knew her. Columbia had hit on every stallion in town once and was now going down the list again. She’d been actively asking where she could find oil. Most troubling, she seemed totally serious about running for President of Equestria, a title that hadn’t been used in millennia.
Twilight had already written about her to the Princesses. They seemed amused. Twilight was not.
“You’ll all see how I can make things better,” said Columbia. “When I’m elected, Equestria will become capitalist and you’ll all be rich.”
“Technically, Equestria’s already capitalist,” said Twilight. “We have a free market and ponies can do whatever they’re best at for money.”
“Yeah, and then I can come along and buy it all,” said Columbia. Twilight decided not to dignify that with a response.
Elsewhere in town, Trixie welcomed Daring back from a long trip. It was regrettable that Trixie hadn’t been able to go with her, and also that Daring hadn’t been able to go to the moon.
“The Amulet of Culiacan is proving very difficult to track down,” said Daring. “I was sure I had it that time. Heck, I was sure I had it the first time. Either somepony got to it first, or they keep moving it. I know it’s not Caballeron doing it, either.”
“We could maybe task a satellite,” Trixie mused. “That would require either rebuilding a control terminal or hacking into the government’s. Recreating all the work would take months. I’m decent with computers, but for a hacking job that big I’d have to get a code expert like Braeburn to help. Though I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t go for it.”
“Well, maybe we could convince him to devote time to that instead of Merry May,” suggested Daring. “Something that gets his mind off chasing plastic poon.”
“I think Merry’s almost done that herself,” Trixie speculated.
Merry was in a downward spiral. Normally that would be a pun because she was an airplane, but no, she was just depressed. Not to the point of considering suicide or anything, at least partially because she wasn’t sure if her airframe could even die, but things were getting really awkward.
Braeburn was at a loss. Admittedly, he’d failed to envision that unlocking Tin Mare’s mental blocks would have such an effect. Still, how was he supposed to save somepony whose situation had only been made worse by becoming aware of it?
The best he could think of was asking Merry to give Princess Ember a lift when she wanted to go back to the Dragon Lands. Merry seemed to get a small amount of vindication from someone else with horrible body image problems. In doing the lift, Merry hated being a utility, but she also hated being useless - or worse, a war machine - even more. Braeburn made sure to avoid using the phrase, “You’re the only one who can.” She hated that, too.
Coloratura was also in need of a pick-me-up. After they’d realized that a mysterious figure had been doing late-night bioelectronic medical experiments on her, Applejack had decided to keep watch on her round the clock. That involved bringing her along whenever the girls went somewhere.
Having Columbia take her own initiative to follow the group everywhere rather defeated Twilight’s idea of finally visiting Silent Hill to get away from her. But she’d insisted, and Twilight got the feeling that arguing with her might be at least as frustrating as arguing with Valiant. Because she didn’t even make good arguments, if nothing else.
Twilight had reluctantly decided that Cracker, while an enigma, hadn’t done anything untoward yet, despite ample opportunity. It wasn’t worth worrying about her until she proved herself a problem.
Merry was heavy when she lifted off that day, with Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Spike, Braeburn, Coloratura, Cordoba, Columbia, Trixie, Daring, and Cracker onboard and Ember’s huge bulk slung underneath.
They made a detour to return Ember home to her father. Spike’s efforts and research devoted to finding a cure hadn’t met success. Necromancy was not known for solving problems.
After stopping at the Dragon Lands, they headed north.
The former Yakyakistan had been uninhabited since an avalanche had buried everything and everyone. Merry elected to leave her landing gear folded, landing belly-up on the deep snow to avoid sinking.
Everyone got out.
“Um, well,” said Twilight. “Here we are.”
Here, of course, being a flat expanse of featureless snow covering the remains of an entire species. Of which the Princesses had appointed Twilight as governor.
“Does anypony else think that these snowbanks on either side of the valley are getting rather built up?” said Rarity.
Applejack turned to Rainbow. “You’re a weather pony. What do you think?”
Rainbow sulked, spite in her voice. “I don’t know. Twilight, you’ve got my wings. What do you think?”
“Uh...I think Rarity might be right,” said Twilight hurriedly. “We should do something about that, to make it safer.”
“Maybe some kind of controlled avalanche?” said Trixie.
“Could work,” said Twilight. “How would we start it, though?”
“I’ve...always kind of wanted to sing in a valley, like a natural concert hall,” said Coloratura. “I think the acoustics would be good.”
“Whatever we do, we should probably be airborne so we don’t get crushed by an avalanche because we were at the bottom of a valley like idiots,” said Cordoba.
“Hey, I resemble that remark!” protested Columbia.
Pinkie laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Columbia demanded.
“Wait, you were serious?” said Pinkie, cocking her head as if it were a foreign concept.
“Are you retarded or something?” Columbia said.
“That’s not very nice,” Fluttershy said.
“Opinions are like assholes. Everyone is one,” said Cordoba. “Let’s get going before we get buried under a million tons of snow.”
“That’s actually not much of an exaggeration,” said Twilight as they boarded Merry. “I read a book about snowpack layers once, and a large avalanche can…” She trailed off as she realized nobody cared.
Hovering over the valley, Braeburn helped Coloratura find a microphone and patch into Merry’s external speakers. Twilight said, “We’re going to need a certain frequency. Go up and down your scales and I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Coloratura warmed up with some do-re-me. Twilight asked her to make a few adjustments, gesturing for higher or lower frequencies while she studied the snow. Finally, Coloratura hit the note.
The valley between two mountains was buried under another layer of snow, turning the whole area into a plateau.
“Well, that was convenient,” said Twilight. “We’ll build a city there.”
“Aside from the fact that it’s cold as balls,” said Columbia.
“Speak for yourself,” said Pinkie.
“I am,” said Columbia.
Pinkie - Pinkie, of all ponies - cringed.
“You’ll just need to get some ponies to move in, if you want to make a city out of it,” said Cracker.
Twilight frowned. She was right. There was nothing there to do, no obvious natural resources, and the climate would be terrible.
They decided to let the snow settle and headed to the nearby Crystal Empire for a surprise visit.
The newly-fixed Crystal Heart had melted the snow around the castle. The statue of Sombra after Valiant had punchsploded him dominated the area.
Upon arrival at the castle, they found Sunburst and the changeling Thorax hanging out.
“They are literally the only others around,” said Shining. “It was no problem to invite them over.”
“Hello again,” said Thorax.
“You aren’t going to try to turn into my dad again?” said Cordoba, throwing a stink eye. “Because I’ll kill you if you do.”
Twilight slid in front of her. “She’s...probably serious. What I want to know is, er, I’ve never had the chance to talk to a changeling. Just so I know what words to use, what’s your gender?”
“I can be anything,” said Thorax. “That’s kind of the whole point of being a changeling.”
“I think you mean you can be any sex,” said Twilight. “Gender is what you identify as.”
“Um, I think you can be any gender you want, too,” said Fluttershy.
To avoid going down that rabbit hole, Rarity broke in, “You can be anypony and you chose to call yourself ‘Thorax?’”
“Well, better than ‘Pituitary Gland’ or something,” said Applejack.
“Or ‘Coccyx!’" added Pinkie. She frowned. “Wait, that doesn’t have anything to do with cocks so it’s not as dirty or funny.”
“What was that about cocks?” said Columbia.
There was an awkward silence.
“I was, um, just saying how changelings can be anything,” said Thorax.
“Can you be a really horny dude?” said Columbia.
Thorax frowned. “You mean like a unicorn?”
“Thorax has been pretty isolated here,” said Sunburst. “Also, while Twilight investigates that, I’ve never had the chance to talk to anypony like you.” He ran his eyes from the tip of Columbia’s horn down to the tip of her… Sunburst shook his head. “So what’s your gender?”
“I’m a woman.”
“But-”
“What?”
“Um.” Sunburst paused for several seconds and looked away. “Okay.”
It was getting near dinner time. Cadance had agreed to host the get-together. Spike found himself next to Thorax at the dinner table. In a low voice, he asked, “So do you take requests?”
“What do you mean?” asked Thorax.
“If I asked you to be somepony or something specific?”
“Oh yeah, Sunburst does that all the time.”
Spike looked across the table at Sunburst and back to Thorax. The two of them lived together, had nothing to do outdoors in the frozen north, and one of them was a shapeshifter. He didn’t have to read between the lines.
Down the table, Twilight quietly asked Shining, “How long has it been since you got to play Ogres & Oubliettes?”
Shining cut his eyes side to side. “How did you know about that?”
“Please, BBBFF, I know you.”
Shining let out a breath. “A couple years. Why?”
“Spike’s missing an O&O meetup right now, but he wanted to come on this trip. I just figured you might want to know there was a group in Ponyville.”
“Wait a moment, the reason Spike’s been sneaking off with Big Macintosh is to play some game?” said Applejack.
“Why didn’t you guess that?” said Rarity. “They certainly aren’t secret lovers. If Spikey-wikey was gay, I would have been all over him to be my GBFF.”
“I’m gay,” volunteered Pinkie.
“That does not automatically qualify one for the position,” Rarity said. “For example, you don’t see me hanging out with Sir Win. You’re both my friends, but you don’t quite make the cut for gay best friends. There are certain requirements.”
“I know lots about gays,” said Columbia, butting in. “When I’m president, I’ll make the best gay laws.”
“President?” asked Shining.
“You don’t want to know,” said Twilight.